Emmy for the Win (3/?)
Title: Emmy for the Win aka The Intrinsic Happiness Quotient 2 (3/?)
Spoilers: Everything up to and including 2 X 23
Rating: T (Warning for language)
Word Count: 3,688
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is not mine... I only stake my claim on the plot and the - as Sheldon would call them - newb characters... and maybe Sheldon himself, if I can get him.
X-Posted to Paradox: community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/745665.html
A/N: Ah, the next chapter. It feels good to be writing again. I sincerely hope y’all enjoy this. Much love and comments! <3
Chapter Three
Shite. Bugger. Fuck.
Derek Gablehauser resisted the urge to slam the door to his office - just thinking the word made him grimace involuntarily - when all he wanted to do was walk across the hall and throttle the breath from the luscious body of Emily Cooper, demon spawn of Sheldon Cooper.
Luscious? Good God - where had that random thought come from? He shook his head as if to clear it of all thoughts of her.
He rounded his desk and flopped elegantly - for Gablehausers did everything with an innate elegance and superior sense of decorum - into his chair, and then almost toppled over.
Goddamn it.
He jumped up again and dealt a ferocious kick to the offending piece of shoddy furniture, cursing the fact that his mother delaying him in Geneva two weeks ago had caused him to lose the office across the hall. The well-appointed, well-furnished, elegant office that should have been his.
He was fairly certain Cooper Junior would have been just as happy with the hovel he inhabited right now, he thought with a sneer, resolutely trying not to remember the rapt look on her face the morning they had first met. It was probably the best office she had ever set foot in, and he supposed even the hick American could appreciate some of the finer things in life.
He also resolutely ignored the fact that his parents were Americans too.
Thank goodness they had the good sense to conceive and birth him in England. Not to mention the excellent notion of allowing his grandparents, the Gablehausers, to be largely responsible for his upbringing. The tiniest of smiles graced his features. His lineage (on the Gablehauser side of course) was impeccable, and his grandparents had ensured that his brilliant mind had been indulged and cultivated in all the right ways, at all the premier educational institutions. Schooled at Eton, then Oxford, research at Harvard and St. Andrew’s until the offer to take up a faculty position at Oxford had come along; it was a truly remarkable, stellar journey - right up until he (and his mother, but really mostly him) had lost the Nobel to the Coopers.
He picked a piece of imaginary lint from the lapel of his immaculate suit as he stared out the window - and at the parking lot. Despair caused him to briefly close his eyes and not envy Cooper any more for her lovely - and undoubtedly soothing - view of the gardens.
Further thought, however was suspended by a knock on his door. He cursed and then called gruffly.
“Enter at your own peril.”
“Derek.”
“Luke.” Derek turned to greet his friend and colleague with a brief handshake. Luke noted his grim expression before continuing.
“I take it the meeting with Morgenstern went poorly?”
“I really must learn to control my ecstatic facial expressions.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth lifted a fraction at that but the would-be smile vanished as he looked around the office.
“This is the most depressing hole in the wall, isn’t it? I thought Morgenstern was going to have it completely renovated?”
“The work’s scheduled to start two weeks hence.”
“In that case - allow me to buy you a celebratory drink.”
“In deference to the time of day, I suppose it will have to be caffeinated and not alcoholic?”
“Ah, so the meeting was that good?”
“You cannot even begin to imagine.”
“In that case, perhaps we can convince Jacob to pour a little Irish soul into the coffee.”
“Or a lot. Or skip the coffee entirely. Excellent idea,” Derek grabbed his PDA from his desk as Luke opened the door. He didn’t notice his friend come to an immediate halt outside.
“Well, hello,” he heard Luke’s drawl just outside the door. He knew that particular tone of his friend’s voice, and it made his skin crawl. That meant that there was a beautiful woman outside and Luke was gearing up to get into her knickers.
And damned if Derek didn’t just know that it could only be Emily Cooper outside that door.
God help them both if Luke decided to make Cooper his latest conquest.
“H..hello,” Cooper stammered her greeting, looking like the Bambi caught on the headlights of on oncoming, out-of-control lorry.
“Luke McEwan. Pleasure.”
“Er... Okay.” Cooper darted an uncertain glance in Derek’s direction, almost as if seeking permission to talk to someone he knew, before continuing - not that he had given his permission though. “Emily Cooper.”
“Emily Cooper?” Luke squeaked in a most unmanly manner, but recovered quickly and raised her hand to his lips for a kiss.
Bloody arse was too damn continental for Derek’s liking.
“The Emily Cooper?” Luke looked back at Derek for confirmation and he nodded succinctly.
“Nobel laureate. Physicist extraordinaire. People magazine’s Sexiest Scientist last year? That Emily Cooper?” Derek almost gave in to the desire to laugh at the startled, then bashful, then downright mortified expression on Cooper’s face. He sneered at her instead, liking the way a brief flame fired up in her cerulean eyes. “My dear - I’m honoured to meet you at last,” Luke continued. “I’ve heard so much about you from Derek but the dog - he never once mentioned how absolutely stunning you are!”
“Er... thanks?” Emily - no, Cooper - best not to forget who her sire was, for that would be catastrophic - looked momentarily nonplussed but then relief washed over her features when the mobile phone she was holding rang. She mumbled an apology and scurried away from them.
“Why didn’t I recognise her straight away?” Luke mumbled, and pulled out his PDA.
“What?” Derek had been momentarily distracted by the gentle sway of Emily Cooper’s, and was trying his best not to be mesmerized by the floaty swishing of her skirt against her calves.
Shite.
Bugger.
Fuck.
“Oh! I would have recognised her immediately otherwise. She’s all done up for this but the real thing is not that hard on the eyes either, eh?” he showed Derek an image on his PDA. “Sexiest Scientist - I have to whole-heartedly agree.” Luke practically hummed with appreciation, and was likely plotting The Seduction of Emily Cooper as they stood there.
Derek spared a flicker of a glance at the picture - sexy black skirt suit that moulded her body like a second skin, with a tease of fuschia lace showing under the jacket; golden hair pulled back into a sleek pony-tail that would seem too severe had it not been for the soft, loose curls draped over one shoulder; elegant legs crossed at the ankles; signature horn-rim glasses perched on her nose, and a look on her face that reminded him of Grace Kelly, his grandfather’s favourite actress. His eidetic memory stored the image away for future reference, all without his face showing an inkling of what he was thinking.
He turned to his enthralled (and former, if Luke was not careful) best friend.
“She is Lucifer’s hand-maiden. Stay the hell away from her.”
“How can you possibly hate such hotness?” Luke looked flabbergasted.
“Practice,” Derek deadpanned. “Not to mention that it’s practically in my genetic code to loathe her and everything she stands for.”
“Derek, string cosmology doesn’t fly with me either but, for her, I would put aside the pursuit of truth, physics and the loop quantum gravity way.”
“That is because you are a lesser mind - not to mention, a lesser man - than I am.”
“Please. I don’t think I can stomach your Homo novus argument again.”
“You just haven’t gotten over the fact that I am more highly evolved than you and always will be. Now can we please go get pissed? There’s bound to be a pub open somewhere. It is the bloody British Isles.”
“I thought we were settling for Irish coffee. It’s not even half past ten!”
“You can have your coffee. I need a damn Guinness. Or two or ten. Call Jacob to join us if you like but my car leaves the parking lot in five minutes.”
And with that he stalked away down the hallway leaving a stunned Luke in his wake.
***
“Oh! The gang’s all there,” Emmy stated, the happy note in her voice decidedly forced.
Her father noticed and crooked his eyebrow enquiringly at her. He was really getting far too good at reading people.
“Is something the matter, Emmy?” he asked in that familiar pragmatic tone of voice, his brow furrowing as a hesitant look crossed her face. She made a show of adjusting the focus on the webcam, her fingers ghosting over the glass-top keyboard.
“Umm...”
“Emmy - hello, baby,” Raj’s smiling face popped into view behind her father. “We missed you last week.”
“Hi, Uncle Raj - sorry about that. Been a bit distracted.” Raj and Sheldon looked at each other, and Raj disappeared for a second to pull a chair up to the camera at their end.
“Spill,” was all he said as he sat down, crossing his hands over his chest.
Emmy fleetingly wished he still had that problem talking to girls.
“Er...”
“Hey beautiful!” Howard sidled up and poked his head into the webcam. The effect enlarged his nose to gigantic proportions on Emmy’s screen. She laughed.
“Emmy’s got a problem - we’re helping,” Raj informed him.
“Oh. Five brilliant minds are better than one - Leonard get over here!” Howard called out as he left to pull up two more chairs. Emmy shut her eyes in despair.
“How effortlessly you toss yourself into the brilliant mind category,” Sheldon grumped.
“You have to give it to him, Dad - he did eventually get a PhD, you know.”
“That is neither here nor there.”
“Yeah, yeah - none of us can compare to you when it comes to IQ - blah, blah - whatever, dude. Emmy - what’s... Oh, here’s Leonard.”
“Hi Emmy!” Leonard waved at her in that cute, bashful way of his that still made her think he was in his twenties.
“Hi.”
“So - spill,” Raj reiterated.
“Oh! Are you telling them already, Emmy?” Lalita’s instantly recognisable voice sounded from somewhere in the background.
“You promised I could watch you tell Uncle Sheldon!” Emmy wiped a hand down her face in frustration, and resisted the urge to claim static interference and sign off.
But her father now had a perturbed look on his face and she didn’t think that would work - he was way too tenacious and would probably just keeping calling all her phone numbers until it drove her nuts.
“Dani! Vi! She’s telling Uncle Sheldon!” Lalita appeared just behind Sheldon on the screen and Emmy shot her a furious look that was, of course, ignored unremorsefully.
“What is Emmy telling Uncle Sheldon?” Emmy groaned as her mother joined the group.
There was more of the same until finally, Howard moved the camera a little further away so Emmy could see them all. Her parents of course, were front and centre, Penny standing behind Sheldon’s chair.
“Sweetie - are you all right? I get the feeling this isn’t about work? Oh - is it about Marcus?” Penny Cooper got straight to the point of everything - and Emmy really wished she had inherited that ability.
Instead, she glared at Lalita, who just shrugged.
“Aunt Penny and I had a lunch meeting with our agent. We dished about you,” she said by way of explanation.
“All right,” Jordan (bless her) called for quiet. “Emmy, is this something you’d prefer to discuss with just Sheldon and Penny? We can all go outside by the pool.”
“Mama!”
“Shush, Lalita - honestly!”
“Just trust me, Mama - you’re not gonna want to miss this.”
“If Emmy needs some privacy - I think we should all respect that.”
“No - it’s all right, Aunt Jordan,” Emmy sighed in resignation. “You might as well find out now - you’re gonna hear about it soon enough when Dad has a stroke.” Everyone laughed except the girls. Aunt Stephanie noticed and looked at Emmy in alarm.
“I feel like I should have my medical bag handy.”
“It’s right here, Mom - way ahead of you,” Danielle grinned.
“So I guess you’ve all heard about Marcus.” There was a lot of nodding. “Great. So, I found out today that he’s not a maintenance guy like I first thought, he’s a physicist.” Emmy winced at her father’s pleased reaction. “Except - he’s... he’s... he’s...”
“Oh, for goodness sake - just say it! I can’t wait for his reaction!” Lalita quipped. Emmy sent the Cooper Death Glare her way. It was futile.
“He’s... a loop quantum cosmologist!” Emmy blurted out - and scrunched her eyes shut.
Lalita groaned in the ensuing silence, but nobody else spoke for an entire minute. Aunt Sasha was the first to recover.
“What the frak?” Sasha scoffed and gave Emmy - who had now opened her eyes - a look of commiseration. “Sweetheart - love trumps physics.”
“Only barely,” Sheldon was quick to point out. Penny smacked her hand against his shoulder - hard - and a ghost of a smile whispered across his mouth. “Still - Emmy, you underestimate me. I do not have an issue with all physicists who subscribe to the loop quantum gravity way. Perhaps we can re-educate your young man.”
Lalita and Danielle guffawed - guffawed - while Violet smirked in the sweetest possible way.
Sheldon looked at the girls quizzically - and then back at Emmy. “You’re leaving out something important.”
“I just found this out last week, Daddy,” she drew in a deep breath and went for broke. “Phillip called me into his office with the other newly appointed faculty member and basically told us that he’s reinstating the Arctic project you were once involved in...”
“The search for real world magnetic monopoles?” Sheldon asked excitedly. “I was so close - so close, Emmy!”
“I know, Dad.”
“That’s really fantastic news, Emmy!” Raj chipped in - looking excitedly at his wife. “Remember all that excitement when we were up there?”
“We didn’t really get any conclusive results, Raj,” Jordan smirked playfully at him, “I think you’re remembering a whole other kind of excitement entirely, jaan.” Raj ducked his head bashfully.
“Oh yeah,” he giggled.
“Ewww - Mama, Papa, please!” Lalita looked mortified.
“Can we focus?” Penny reined them in. “Go on, sweetie.”
“So Phillip wants us to work together - test the monopole theory and tie it into cosmological inflation somehow - if that’s even possible. We’re to go to the Arctic for three months. And we leave in a week,” Emmy revealed, her eyes fixed on her father’s face.
“So Phillip wants to reconcile the schools of thought on cosmological inflation as it pertains to the existence of magnetic monopoles in the real world?” Sheldon looked all at once baffled and interested. “The premise is unexpected but...”
“Intriguing?” Emmy supplied and he nodded. “I agree. Which is why I’m going.”
“In a week’s time?” Penny asked in slight alarm.
“She’ll be fine,” Sheldon reassured her by placing his hand over the one that she had at his shoulder. “The research station was no more than a glorified shack while we were up there but it is quite habitable now. It’s also mostly underground and so much more insulated from the elements. She’ll be fine,” he smiled up at his wife and Penny sighed, dropping a kiss to the top of his head before looking back at Emmy.
“Well, if you’re sure sweetie. Who’s the guy going with you? It’ll be nice to have company, and I guess I’ll worry less knowing you aren’t going to be completely alone up there.”
Lalita snorted, and Penny shot her A Look.
“Oh. My. God.” Her mother missed not a thing, Emmy mused. “It’s Marcus - he’s the new guy! You’ll be shacked up in the Arctic for three months with Marcus!” Penny let out a little squeal. “Finally, my baby is gonna get some!”
“Mom!!!”
“I didn’t hear that. I’m not listening. This is about physics,” Sheldon repeated to himself like a mantra, and tried not to look too horrified. The exact same look was mirrored on the faces of his three best friends.
“Or just something physic-al,” Penny wisecracked, getting a squinty glare from her husband that she promptly returned, only she followed it up with a huge grin.
“Well - is that true, Emmy?” Jordan asked gleefully.
“Yeah,” Emmy mumbled, wanting the floor to swallow her up.
“Aww, honey - that’s a good thing,” Stephanie reassured her with a smile.
“No - no, it really isn’t,” Emmy sighed, and she supposed some of the misery she felt on the inside was beginning to manifest itself on the outside, because suddenly all the parental units were watching her a tad warily.
“What are you not telling us?” Sheldon asked in concern. “You know you can tell us anything, Emmy.”
“I found out something about Marcus last week too. You know, like his full name. I had Dani do a background check on him. Marcus is his middle name.”
An emotion that looked like it fell smack at the crossroads between fear and loathing began to dawn on her father’s face.
She was an idiot sometimes, but her father’s memory never failed him.
A look passed between them and a silent conversation ensued as the others looked on in fascination.
It’s not...
I’m sorry...
It can’t be...
I didn’t know...
I don’t believe it...
It’s true...
“Fuck.”
Eleven people gasped in shock, as all heads swivelled to look at Sheldon’s flabbergasted face. There was also a flash of light and a triumphant crow from Lalita.
“Totally worth it,” she squealed before getting smacked in the arm by Danielle. “What? I saved Uncle Sheldon’s expression for posterity. You guys’ll thank me later.”
Emmy rolled her eyes and looked at her father in earnest. He had just cursed out loud.
Great. Well, at least he didn’t look like he was going to go into cardiac arrest... yet.
“What? I don’t get it!” Penny yelled in frustration. “It so annoys me when you do that silent father-daughter internal dialogue thingie!”
“Derek. Marcus. Gablehauser.” Sheldon spat each name out like it was poison on his tongue. And truly, Emmy could not fault him one iota.
Several jaws dropped. Even Dani’s and she already knew the truth about Marcus. No, Derek. Gablehauser - arghh, whatever! There were several minutes of complete and utter silence as Sheldon, knuckles white as he gripped the table, tried to control his breathing.
“So that would be a no to re-educating him and bringing him over from the Dark Side then?” Leonard quipped. There was a pregnant pause and suddenly the tension dissipated as everyone - well, except Sheldon, of course - laughed.
“Huh. Leslie Winkle’s son,” Penny smirked. “Leslie Winkle and Eric Gablehauser’s son.”
“We are all familiar with his genealogy, Penny - you needn’t mention her name in my presence.”
“But Sheldon - Emmy’s got the hots for him! She can’t help his... genealogy!”
Sheldon convulsed.
Sheldon sputtered.
And then his face twitched something fierce.
“Here we go,” Leonard muttered in resignation, as Stephanie put a hand on her medical bag. Just in case.
“I... you... Arctic... alone... with a Winkle?” Emmy had a PhD in Sheldon-speak so she completely understood the gist of the fragmented sentence.
Dear God - it was worse than she had imagined. Her news had rendered her father grammatically incoherent.
“Daddy - I looked into it. There’s actually a team going. From the same universities that had a hand in the first discovery of magnetic monopoles in magnets. So Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Dresden, St. Andrews, La Plata and Oxford - it’s a big team, lots of people. I won’t be alone with him. I’m not even talking to him. Any and all interactions with him will be strictly professional and impersonal and hopefully through some form of technology and not face-to-face.”
“Oh, sweetie.” The sad look on her mother’s face almost did her in.
“Mom - it’s fine. I’m fine. So - I had a little crush. Whatever. I know who he is now and believe me - that makes a huge difference. Huge. Hell will freeze over before I hook up with him.”
“Funny. I always thought of the Arctic as a frozen Hell on earth,” Howard joked, waggling his eyebrows at Emmy. Sasha smacked him upside the head.
“Don’t help.”
“Gotcha.”
“Emmy’s a big girl and she’s strong,” Jordan piped up. “She can - and will - hold her own against Gablehauser. She took the damn Nobel from him - how can he possibly top that?”
“He can take her heart.” It was said so softly that no one really knew who to look at - except Emmy.
“This is science, Vi. My heart has nothing to do with it unless it concerns the research,” Emmy banished the idea - no matter how worrisome - from her mind. “Besides. I have bigger fish to fry. It’s on, Dad.”
“What. Do. You. Mean?” Sheldon enunciated each word and seemed pleased that they formed an understandable question.
“Phillip thinks the only way we can explain the Big Bang Theory is if we marry string cosmology with loop quantum cosmology.”
“Marry?” Sheldon gasped.
“Freudian much?” Lalita grinned at her.
“Focus, people!” Emmy yelled. “This is about physics. Dad - Gablehauser is so gonna have Leslie Winkle consulting on this.
We need to get out minds in gear!”
“So - no marrying of any kind, then?”
“Daddy!” Sheldon blinked at the gleam in Emmy’s eye.
“What?”
“If we crack this - it’s another Nobel in the bag.”
“Good grief - you’re right.”
“Oh no, no - Sheldon!” Leonard whined. “We already went through this once! You wanted the Prize - you got the Prize. You don’t really need two!”
“Shut up, Leonard. Only a handful of people have won it twice!” An intensely focused look came over Sheldon’s face. Leonard groaned. Howard and Raj shared a gleeful look. It was just like old times somehow.
“Well, Dad?” Emmy asked cautiously, hoping and praying that she had convinced him that her interest in Gablehauser was non-existent, and that she was in total control of all her faculties, and ready to focus on the work ahead.
Now, if only she could convince herself.
Sheldon looked at her, his serious gaze steady on her face.
You’re sure...
I am...
There’s nothing...
Nothing else matters...
You know I will do anything for you...
I know, Daddy...
Sheldon smiled, and looked convinced.
“Oh, it is ON.”
***
Spoilers: Everything up to and including 2 X 23
Rating: T (Warning for language)
Word Count: 3,688
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is not mine... I only stake my claim on the plot and the - as Sheldon would call them - newb characters... and maybe Sheldon himself, if I can get him.
X-Posted to Paradox: community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/745665.html
A/N: Ah, the next chapter. It feels good to be writing again. I sincerely hope y’all enjoy this. Much love and comments! <3
Chapter Three
Shite. Bugger. Fuck.
Derek Gablehauser resisted the urge to slam the door to his office - just thinking the word made him grimace involuntarily - when all he wanted to do was walk across the hall and throttle the breath from the luscious body of Emily Cooper, demon spawn of Sheldon Cooper.
Luscious? Good God - where had that random thought come from? He shook his head as if to clear it of all thoughts of her.
He rounded his desk and flopped elegantly - for Gablehausers did everything with an innate elegance and superior sense of decorum - into his chair, and then almost toppled over.
Goddamn it.
He jumped up again and dealt a ferocious kick to the offending piece of shoddy furniture, cursing the fact that his mother delaying him in Geneva two weeks ago had caused him to lose the office across the hall. The well-appointed, well-furnished, elegant office that should have been his.
He was fairly certain Cooper Junior would have been just as happy with the hovel he inhabited right now, he thought with a sneer, resolutely trying not to remember the rapt look on her face the morning they had first met. It was probably the best office she had ever set foot in, and he supposed even the hick American could appreciate some of the finer things in life.
He also resolutely ignored the fact that his parents were Americans too.
Thank goodness they had the good sense to conceive and birth him in England. Not to mention the excellent notion of allowing his grandparents, the Gablehausers, to be largely responsible for his upbringing. The tiniest of smiles graced his features. His lineage (on the Gablehauser side of course) was impeccable, and his grandparents had ensured that his brilliant mind had been indulged and cultivated in all the right ways, at all the premier educational institutions. Schooled at Eton, then Oxford, research at Harvard and St. Andrew’s until the offer to take up a faculty position at Oxford had come along; it was a truly remarkable, stellar journey - right up until he (and his mother, but really mostly him) had lost the Nobel to the Coopers.
He picked a piece of imaginary lint from the lapel of his immaculate suit as he stared out the window - and at the parking lot. Despair caused him to briefly close his eyes and not envy Cooper any more for her lovely - and undoubtedly soothing - view of the gardens.
Further thought, however was suspended by a knock on his door. He cursed and then called gruffly.
“Enter at your own peril.”
“Derek.”
“Luke.” Derek turned to greet his friend and colleague with a brief handshake. Luke noted his grim expression before continuing.
“I take it the meeting with Morgenstern went poorly?”
“I really must learn to control my ecstatic facial expressions.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth lifted a fraction at that but the would-be smile vanished as he looked around the office.
“This is the most depressing hole in the wall, isn’t it? I thought Morgenstern was going to have it completely renovated?”
“The work’s scheduled to start two weeks hence.”
“In that case - allow me to buy you a celebratory drink.”
“In deference to the time of day, I suppose it will have to be caffeinated and not alcoholic?”
“Ah, so the meeting was that good?”
“You cannot even begin to imagine.”
“In that case, perhaps we can convince Jacob to pour a little Irish soul into the coffee.”
“Or a lot. Or skip the coffee entirely. Excellent idea,” Derek grabbed his PDA from his desk as Luke opened the door. He didn’t notice his friend come to an immediate halt outside.
“Well, hello,” he heard Luke’s drawl just outside the door. He knew that particular tone of his friend’s voice, and it made his skin crawl. That meant that there was a beautiful woman outside and Luke was gearing up to get into her knickers.
And damned if Derek didn’t just know that it could only be Emily Cooper outside that door.
God help them both if Luke decided to make Cooper his latest conquest.
“H..hello,” Cooper stammered her greeting, looking like the Bambi caught on the headlights of on oncoming, out-of-control lorry.
“Luke McEwan. Pleasure.”
“Er... Okay.” Cooper darted an uncertain glance in Derek’s direction, almost as if seeking permission to talk to someone he knew, before continuing - not that he had given his permission though. “Emily Cooper.”
“Emily Cooper?” Luke squeaked in a most unmanly manner, but recovered quickly and raised her hand to his lips for a kiss.
Bloody arse was too damn continental for Derek’s liking.
“The Emily Cooper?” Luke looked back at Derek for confirmation and he nodded succinctly.
“Nobel laureate. Physicist extraordinaire. People magazine’s Sexiest Scientist last year? That Emily Cooper?” Derek almost gave in to the desire to laugh at the startled, then bashful, then downright mortified expression on Cooper’s face. He sneered at her instead, liking the way a brief flame fired up in her cerulean eyes. “My dear - I’m honoured to meet you at last,” Luke continued. “I’ve heard so much about you from Derek but the dog - he never once mentioned how absolutely stunning you are!”
“Er... thanks?” Emily - no, Cooper - best not to forget who her sire was, for that would be catastrophic - looked momentarily nonplussed but then relief washed over her features when the mobile phone she was holding rang. She mumbled an apology and scurried away from them.
“Why didn’t I recognise her straight away?” Luke mumbled, and pulled out his PDA.
“What?” Derek had been momentarily distracted by the gentle sway of Emily Cooper’s, and was trying his best not to be mesmerized by the floaty swishing of her skirt against her calves.
Shite.
Bugger.
Fuck.
“Oh! I would have recognised her immediately otherwise. She’s all done up for this but the real thing is not that hard on the eyes either, eh?” he showed Derek an image on his PDA. “Sexiest Scientist - I have to whole-heartedly agree.” Luke practically hummed with appreciation, and was likely plotting The Seduction of Emily Cooper as they stood there.
Derek spared a flicker of a glance at the picture - sexy black skirt suit that moulded her body like a second skin, with a tease of fuschia lace showing under the jacket; golden hair pulled back into a sleek pony-tail that would seem too severe had it not been for the soft, loose curls draped over one shoulder; elegant legs crossed at the ankles; signature horn-rim glasses perched on her nose, and a look on her face that reminded him of Grace Kelly, his grandfather’s favourite actress. His eidetic memory stored the image away for future reference, all without his face showing an inkling of what he was thinking.
He turned to his enthralled (and former, if Luke was not careful) best friend.
“She is Lucifer’s hand-maiden. Stay the hell away from her.”
“How can you possibly hate such hotness?” Luke looked flabbergasted.
“Practice,” Derek deadpanned. “Not to mention that it’s practically in my genetic code to loathe her and everything she stands for.”
“Derek, string cosmology doesn’t fly with me either but, for her, I would put aside the pursuit of truth, physics and the loop quantum gravity way.”
“That is because you are a lesser mind - not to mention, a lesser man - than I am.”
“Please. I don’t think I can stomach your Homo novus argument again.”
“You just haven’t gotten over the fact that I am more highly evolved than you and always will be. Now can we please go get pissed? There’s bound to be a pub open somewhere. It is the bloody British Isles.”
“I thought we were settling for Irish coffee. It’s not even half past ten!”
“You can have your coffee. I need a damn Guinness. Or two or ten. Call Jacob to join us if you like but my car leaves the parking lot in five minutes.”
And with that he stalked away down the hallway leaving a stunned Luke in his wake.
***
“Oh! The gang’s all there,” Emmy stated, the happy note in her voice decidedly forced.
Her father noticed and crooked his eyebrow enquiringly at her. He was really getting far too good at reading people.
“Is something the matter, Emmy?” he asked in that familiar pragmatic tone of voice, his brow furrowing as a hesitant look crossed her face. She made a show of adjusting the focus on the webcam, her fingers ghosting over the glass-top keyboard.
“Umm...”
“Emmy - hello, baby,” Raj’s smiling face popped into view behind her father. “We missed you last week.”
“Hi, Uncle Raj - sorry about that. Been a bit distracted.” Raj and Sheldon looked at each other, and Raj disappeared for a second to pull a chair up to the camera at their end.
“Spill,” was all he said as he sat down, crossing his hands over his chest.
Emmy fleetingly wished he still had that problem talking to girls.
“Er...”
“Hey beautiful!” Howard sidled up and poked his head into the webcam. The effect enlarged his nose to gigantic proportions on Emmy’s screen. She laughed.
“Emmy’s got a problem - we’re helping,” Raj informed him.
“Oh. Five brilliant minds are better than one - Leonard get over here!” Howard called out as he left to pull up two more chairs. Emmy shut her eyes in despair.
“How effortlessly you toss yourself into the brilliant mind category,” Sheldon grumped.
“You have to give it to him, Dad - he did eventually get a PhD, you know.”
“That is neither here nor there.”
“Yeah, yeah - none of us can compare to you when it comes to IQ - blah, blah - whatever, dude. Emmy - what’s... Oh, here’s Leonard.”
“Hi Emmy!” Leonard waved at her in that cute, bashful way of his that still made her think he was in his twenties.
“Hi.”
“So - spill,” Raj reiterated.
“Oh! Are you telling them already, Emmy?” Lalita’s instantly recognisable voice sounded from somewhere in the background.
“You promised I could watch you tell Uncle Sheldon!” Emmy wiped a hand down her face in frustration, and resisted the urge to claim static interference and sign off.
But her father now had a perturbed look on his face and she didn’t think that would work - he was way too tenacious and would probably just keeping calling all her phone numbers until it drove her nuts.
“Dani! Vi! She’s telling Uncle Sheldon!” Lalita appeared just behind Sheldon on the screen and Emmy shot her a furious look that was, of course, ignored unremorsefully.
“What is Emmy telling Uncle Sheldon?” Emmy groaned as her mother joined the group.
There was more of the same until finally, Howard moved the camera a little further away so Emmy could see them all. Her parents of course, were front and centre, Penny standing behind Sheldon’s chair.
“Sweetie - are you all right? I get the feeling this isn’t about work? Oh - is it about Marcus?” Penny Cooper got straight to the point of everything - and Emmy really wished she had inherited that ability.
Instead, she glared at Lalita, who just shrugged.
“Aunt Penny and I had a lunch meeting with our agent. We dished about you,” she said by way of explanation.
“All right,” Jordan (bless her) called for quiet. “Emmy, is this something you’d prefer to discuss with just Sheldon and Penny? We can all go outside by the pool.”
“Mama!”
“Shush, Lalita - honestly!”
“Just trust me, Mama - you’re not gonna want to miss this.”
“If Emmy needs some privacy - I think we should all respect that.”
“No - it’s all right, Aunt Jordan,” Emmy sighed in resignation. “You might as well find out now - you’re gonna hear about it soon enough when Dad has a stroke.” Everyone laughed except the girls. Aunt Stephanie noticed and looked at Emmy in alarm.
“I feel like I should have my medical bag handy.”
“It’s right here, Mom - way ahead of you,” Danielle grinned.
“So I guess you’ve all heard about Marcus.” There was a lot of nodding. “Great. So, I found out today that he’s not a maintenance guy like I first thought, he’s a physicist.” Emmy winced at her father’s pleased reaction. “Except - he’s... he’s... he’s...”
“Oh, for goodness sake - just say it! I can’t wait for his reaction!” Lalita quipped. Emmy sent the Cooper Death Glare her way. It was futile.
“He’s... a loop quantum cosmologist!” Emmy blurted out - and scrunched her eyes shut.
Lalita groaned in the ensuing silence, but nobody else spoke for an entire minute. Aunt Sasha was the first to recover.
“What the frak?” Sasha scoffed and gave Emmy - who had now opened her eyes - a look of commiseration. “Sweetheart - love trumps physics.”
“Only barely,” Sheldon was quick to point out. Penny smacked her hand against his shoulder - hard - and a ghost of a smile whispered across his mouth. “Still - Emmy, you underestimate me. I do not have an issue with all physicists who subscribe to the loop quantum gravity way. Perhaps we can re-educate your young man.”
Lalita and Danielle guffawed - guffawed - while Violet smirked in the sweetest possible way.
Sheldon looked at the girls quizzically - and then back at Emmy. “You’re leaving out something important.”
“I just found this out last week, Daddy,” she drew in a deep breath and went for broke. “Phillip called me into his office with the other newly appointed faculty member and basically told us that he’s reinstating the Arctic project you were once involved in...”
“The search for real world magnetic monopoles?” Sheldon asked excitedly. “I was so close - so close, Emmy!”
“I know, Dad.”
“That’s really fantastic news, Emmy!” Raj chipped in - looking excitedly at his wife. “Remember all that excitement when we were up there?”
“We didn’t really get any conclusive results, Raj,” Jordan smirked playfully at him, “I think you’re remembering a whole other kind of excitement entirely, jaan.” Raj ducked his head bashfully.
“Oh yeah,” he giggled.
“Ewww - Mama, Papa, please!” Lalita looked mortified.
“Can we focus?” Penny reined them in. “Go on, sweetie.”
“So Phillip wants us to work together - test the monopole theory and tie it into cosmological inflation somehow - if that’s even possible. We’re to go to the Arctic for three months. And we leave in a week,” Emmy revealed, her eyes fixed on her father’s face.
“So Phillip wants to reconcile the schools of thought on cosmological inflation as it pertains to the existence of magnetic monopoles in the real world?” Sheldon looked all at once baffled and interested. “The premise is unexpected but...”
“Intriguing?” Emmy supplied and he nodded. “I agree. Which is why I’m going.”
“In a week’s time?” Penny asked in slight alarm.
“She’ll be fine,” Sheldon reassured her by placing his hand over the one that she had at his shoulder. “The research station was no more than a glorified shack while we were up there but it is quite habitable now. It’s also mostly underground and so much more insulated from the elements. She’ll be fine,” he smiled up at his wife and Penny sighed, dropping a kiss to the top of his head before looking back at Emmy.
“Well, if you’re sure sweetie. Who’s the guy going with you? It’ll be nice to have company, and I guess I’ll worry less knowing you aren’t going to be completely alone up there.”
Lalita snorted, and Penny shot her A Look.
“Oh. My. God.” Her mother missed not a thing, Emmy mused. “It’s Marcus - he’s the new guy! You’ll be shacked up in the Arctic for three months with Marcus!” Penny let out a little squeal. “Finally, my baby is gonna get some!”
“Mom!!!”
“I didn’t hear that. I’m not listening. This is about physics,” Sheldon repeated to himself like a mantra, and tried not to look too horrified. The exact same look was mirrored on the faces of his three best friends.
“Or just something physic-al,” Penny wisecracked, getting a squinty glare from her husband that she promptly returned, only she followed it up with a huge grin.
“Well - is that true, Emmy?” Jordan asked gleefully.
“Yeah,” Emmy mumbled, wanting the floor to swallow her up.
“Aww, honey - that’s a good thing,” Stephanie reassured her with a smile.
“No - no, it really isn’t,” Emmy sighed, and she supposed some of the misery she felt on the inside was beginning to manifest itself on the outside, because suddenly all the parental units were watching her a tad warily.
“What are you not telling us?” Sheldon asked in concern. “You know you can tell us anything, Emmy.”
“I found out something about Marcus last week too. You know, like his full name. I had Dani do a background check on him. Marcus is his middle name.”
An emotion that looked like it fell smack at the crossroads between fear and loathing began to dawn on her father’s face.
She was an idiot sometimes, but her father’s memory never failed him.
A look passed between them and a silent conversation ensued as the others looked on in fascination.
It’s not...
I’m sorry...
It can’t be...
I didn’t know...
I don’t believe it...
It’s true...
“Fuck.”
Eleven people gasped in shock, as all heads swivelled to look at Sheldon’s flabbergasted face. There was also a flash of light and a triumphant crow from Lalita.
“Totally worth it,” she squealed before getting smacked in the arm by Danielle. “What? I saved Uncle Sheldon’s expression for posterity. You guys’ll thank me later.”
Emmy rolled her eyes and looked at her father in earnest. He had just cursed out loud.
Great. Well, at least he didn’t look like he was going to go into cardiac arrest... yet.
“What? I don’t get it!” Penny yelled in frustration. “It so annoys me when you do that silent father-daughter internal dialogue thingie!”
“Derek. Marcus. Gablehauser.” Sheldon spat each name out like it was poison on his tongue. And truly, Emmy could not fault him one iota.
Several jaws dropped. Even Dani’s and she already knew the truth about Marcus. No, Derek. Gablehauser - arghh, whatever! There were several minutes of complete and utter silence as Sheldon, knuckles white as he gripped the table, tried to control his breathing.
“So that would be a no to re-educating him and bringing him over from the Dark Side then?” Leonard quipped. There was a pregnant pause and suddenly the tension dissipated as everyone - well, except Sheldon, of course - laughed.
“Huh. Leslie Winkle’s son,” Penny smirked. “Leslie Winkle and Eric Gablehauser’s son.”
“We are all familiar with his genealogy, Penny - you needn’t mention her name in my presence.”
“But Sheldon - Emmy’s got the hots for him! She can’t help his... genealogy!”
Sheldon convulsed.
Sheldon sputtered.
And then his face twitched something fierce.
“Here we go,” Leonard muttered in resignation, as Stephanie put a hand on her medical bag. Just in case.
“I... you... Arctic... alone... with a Winkle?” Emmy had a PhD in Sheldon-speak so she completely understood the gist of the fragmented sentence.
Dear God - it was worse than she had imagined. Her news had rendered her father grammatically incoherent.
“Daddy - I looked into it. There’s actually a team going. From the same universities that had a hand in the first discovery of magnetic monopoles in magnets. So Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Dresden, St. Andrews, La Plata and Oxford - it’s a big team, lots of people. I won’t be alone with him. I’m not even talking to him. Any and all interactions with him will be strictly professional and impersonal and hopefully through some form of technology and not face-to-face.”
“Oh, sweetie.” The sad look on her mother’s face almost did her in.
“Mom - it’s fine. I’m fine. So - I had a little crush. Whatever. I know who he is now and believe me - that makes a huge difference. Huge. Hell will freeze over before I hook up with him.”
“Funny. I always thought of the Arctic as a frozen Hell on earth,” Howard joked, waggling his eyebrows at Emmy. Sasha smacked him upside the head.
“Don’t help.”
“Gotcha.”
“Emmy’s a big girl and she’s strong,” Jordan piped up. “She can - and will - hold her own against Gablehauser. She took the damn Nobel from him - how can he possibly top that?”
“He can take her heart.” It was said so softly that no one really knew who to look at - except Emmy.
“This is science, Vi. My heart has nothing to do with it unless it concerns the research,” Emmy banished the idea - no matter how worrisome - from her mind. “Besides. I have bigger fish to fry. It’s on, Dad.”
“What. Do. You. Mean?” Sheldon enunciated each word and seemed pleased that they formed an understandable question.
“Phillip thinks the only way we can explain the Big Bang Theory is if we marry string cosmology with loop quantum cosmology.”
“Marry?” Sheldon gasped.
“Freudian much?” Lalita grinned at her.
“Focus, people!” Emmy yelled. “This is about physics. Dad - Gablehauser is so gonna have Leslie Winkle consulting on this.
We need to get out minds in gear!”
“So - no marrying of any kind, then?”
“Daddy!” Sheldon blinked at the gleam in Emmy’s eye.
“What?”
“If we crack this - it’s another Nobel in the bag.”
“Good grief - you’re right.”
“Oh no, no - Sheldon!” Leonard whined. “We already went through this once! You wanted the Prize - you got the Prize. You don’t really need two!”
“Shut up, Leonard. Only a handful of people have won it twice!” An intensely focused look came over Sheldon’s face. Leonard groaned. Howard and Raj shared a gleeful look. It was just like old times somehow.
“Well, Dad?” Emmy asked cautiously, hoping and praying that she had convinced him that her interest in Gablehauser was non-existent, and that she was in total control of all her faculties, and ready to focus on the work ahead.
Now, if only she could convince herself.
Sheldon looked at her, his serious gaze steady on her face.
You’re sure...
I am...
There’s nothing...
Nothing else matters...
You know I will do anything for you...
I know, Daddy...
Sheldon smiled, and looked convinced.
“Oh, it is ON.”
***